Page 120 of It Runs in the Family

“Let’s hope I keep breathin’.”

His smile fell. “You don’t have to do this, Iris. If you want, I can move you somewhere out of the area. Somewhere safe.”

If I hadn’t forced that second vision, I probably would have taken him up on it, but if I was likely to get murdered anyway, I was going to make sure Boone knew as much about my murder as possible so he could make them pay. Then again, based on my vision, he knew enough to find me. He was just about five seconds too late. I probably still had time to make this decision. For now, I’d sit on it.

I gave him a cockeyed grin. “You promised to try to win me over today. I can’t be leavin’ town just yet. I’m still waitin’ to see if you’re gonna succeed.”

He grinned again, then turned serious. “You can change your mind at any point. I will personally make sure you’re protected. Just tell me you want out of here, and we’ll figure out the rest.”

“Thank you, Boone. Seriously.”

He nodded. “Do you want to go by Marvin’s Mercantile?”

“Yeah, but Marvin can be a bit touchy, so we’ll have to be careful.”

“Okay,” he said. “I take it you have a rapport with him?”

“Let’s just say I think he’ll respond better to me than you.”

“Then I’ll let you take the lead.”

That surprised me, but Boone wasn’t turning out to be anything like I’d expected. I figured he’d be the one leading things while I trailed behind. But taking charge felt empowering. Maybe I could change my fate after all.

He copied the contents of the flash drive onto his laptop and also said he’d put them in the cloud, just in case something happened to his computer and/or we lost the flash drive. As he slid the laptop back into his bag, I laughed. “A full pot of coffee, and I never had any.”

“Let’s see if Donna will give us to-go cups,” he said, pulling a twenty out of his wallet and placing it on the table. “Do you think that’s a big enough tip?”

My brow shot up. “Donna’s gonna offer you a marriage proposal.”

“She’ll have to live with her disappointment. I can’t be winnin’ you over today if I’m engaged.”

“I’d hate to stand in the way of true love.”

He flashed me a warm smile, his gaze settling on my mouth. “Agreed.”

There went my hormones again.

He flagged Donna down and asked for to-go cups as he handed her the twenty and told her to keep the change. She walked away beaming and came back about twenty seconds later with our cups.

Boone kept his coffee black. After I doctored mine with the plastic creamer cups set out on the table, we headed out to his truck.

I told him to head downtown. He knew how to get there so I didn’t have to give him directions, instead, he asked, “Do you think you should tell your cousin what’s goin’ on?”

I knew full well who he was talking about, but I said, “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Garrett,” he said, making it clear he knew I knew.

“He already knows some stuff, obviously. He knows about Dario Voss comin’ in, although he doesn’t know who he is, not for lack of tryin’. He knows I was almost kidnapped, and he knows Selena’s missing. Oh.” I turned to face him. “Garrett says one of his deputy friends gave her a ticket last week. She was on the phone at some point, and he thought she was talkin’ to a guy.”

“Was she alone?”

“It sounded like it. I think Garrett would have said if she was with someone.”

“So, at that point, she wasn’t being held against her will.”

My heart sank. “No. I suppose not.”

I picked up her iPad, still sitting on the seat between us. It was still as dead as when we’d first found it. “Do you think we could take this to a repair shop? Maybe the battery won’t hold a charge.”